October 31, 2014

I’ve fallen way behind in this blog. The trip has been such a whirlwind. Between working and actually experiencing the trip I haven’t had much time to sort through the mountains of pictures we’ve been taking and get information down. Right now I’m flying home and have the opportunity on the plane to begin to sort through the blur that this last week has been.

Halloween saw us leaving the very scenic city of Querétaro after a delightful stay. We spent the morning doing a final tour of the historic quarter. Staying here for three days has given us the luxury of beginning to see some of the details. Like the chaotic wiring you see everywhere in Mexico. 

Dia de Los Muertos, is looming really big, even in the bridal shops.

Finally we said goodbye to the Burro Azul,

grabbed a taxi (with assistance from Speedy Gonzales)
and headed for the bus station where we caught a bus to Districto Federal, or DF (Mexico City). From the Mexico city bus station we corralled another taxi to take us to our new digs.

Elsewhere in this blog I have mentioned the exciting prospect of riding in a cab in Mexico. I am struck now by how naïve and uninformed my previous observations were in light of the taxi ride to our new apartment. Those of you who enjoy harrowing amusement park rides would be well advised to investigate the taxi services offered by Mexico City (after securing a reliable life insurance policy). Even fastened in with the occasionally provided seatbelts, the quick accelerations and decelerations, the hairpin turns directly into the line of cross-directional traffic, the taxista’s uncanny sense of the precise physical borders of the vehicle and those of the casually regarded surrounding vehicles – all of these combine to inspire a sense of impending death unequaled by any of the world’s most dangerous recreations. On this occasion our driver seemed to be driven with a kind of dead pan road rage. The horn was used liberally and the swerves in front, behind and along side of the other pesky vehicles seemed gratuitously close.

We made it to our new digs in a charming barrio conveniently located near a metro stop, all in one piece thankfully

The two story, three bedroom, four bath apartment was sumptuous, modern, and much bigger than our own home in Sarona.
It looked out onto a gated courtyard perfect for Tai chi. The gates are opened during the day by reaching through a hole

to open the latch. At night a key is necessary.

Sign’s adorn the sidewalk immediately outside encouraging pet owners to control their animals.

Here,we welcomed Gina, Pablo’s girlfriend, to our traveling family.

October 30, 2014

Finished up at Escuela Internacional early today which gives us extra time to explore more of Querétaro. Dia de Muertos continues to loom large. Our taxi driver related this story, which comes from the taxi drivers of Querétaro:

In La Seccion Amarilla of Querétaro there is a plaza where the Mariachi musicians all go to hangout. From there they often travel to the bookings that they get, and for this reason it’s not uncommon for taxi drivers to linger there as well, hoping for work from the musicians.

One day such a taxi driver was waiting at La Seccion Amarilla when a group of mariachis engaged him to take them to a gig. They explained to him that they would be going to a private residence and were to begin playing a specific song before they entered the house and continue playing as they entered. One or two more songs and they would be done, could the taxi driver wait? The cabby assured them that he could indeed wait, and if the musicians didn’t mind he would follow them into the house to enjoy the music.

So the cabby drove them all to the address the musicians gave him. The door to the building was open and the musicians began playing the requested piece and then marched into the residence.  The cabby followed only to discover that they had all come to a wake. Very quickly a man approached the musicians and asked them what they were doing there. The head of the mariachis told the man they had been engaged to play this specific tune, but he had not been told what that it would be for a wake.

The host told the mariachis that the wake was for his father and that the tune was his father’s favorite song. But he couldn’t imagine who would have engaged the musicians. The head of the mariachis began to describe the man that had booked them and the son turned pale.

“You are describing my father,” he said, and took the musicians over to the casket.

Sure enough the head of the mariachis looked into the coffin and saw the face of the man who had only just that afternoon engaged the services of him and his musicians.

There are so many legends surrounding Dia de Muertos. Catrinais a major icon for the day. Originally created by José Guadalupe Posado as a vehicle for poking fun at the aristocracy she’s become an integral part of the festivities. Everywhere we go we see women of all ages, sometimes even men, dressed as skeletons in elegant gowns. Her image is common in kids drawings and artwork. These were created at La Escuela Internacional.

Plenty of churches here as well. The diocese at La Iglesia San Francisco, which has the clock tower is particularly beautiful inside.

Across the street was some potted cacti which sported some local wildlife.

And nearby, a mural warning of the dangers of ignorance.

We’re in the historic section of Querétaro, which means that all of the buildings are maintained in a more or less antiquarian way. Ditto the roads. This means some pretty high level maintenance even by hand. Road construction takes on a whole new meaning.

It also means that this is an area that relies heavily on tourism.  They do a pretty good job of keeping the crass advertising to a minimum. But there are the occasional signs describing tour routes, like this one here, which was mighty tempting.

But we have other fish to fry. We head toward a local theater that is putting on a production of “La Puerta de Eva,” a play along the lines of “The Vagina Monologues”. I catch maybe 25% of the dialogue, but the acting is good enough that I can fill in the blanks.

Tomorrow it’s off to DF (Mexico City to all you gringos) and three days of exploring.

October 29, 2014

Pablo and I start the day off right with a visit to Escuela Internacional. The kids are younger here, and their English is excellent. By the time I finish, around noon, I feel like a friend of the family. Our trip to the school takes us out of the historic district and I’m able to see regular, day to day Querétaro, a city of about 2 million, according to our taxi driver. I catch sight of an embankment where, months before, someone planted vegetation for just this holiday season, The Day of the Dead; the plants form the shape of a skull. (More on this holiday in just a bit.) En route to the school we passed the aqueducts of Querétaro,designed in 1723 by Juan Antonio de Urrutia y Arana, Marquis of Villa del Villar del Aquila, apparently at the request of a nun he had fallen in love with. Nothing says romance like an aqueduct.

Once Pablo and I return from Escuela Internacional it’s time to head out and see the sights. And boy there are plenty of them. All over Mexico people are celebrating Day of the Dead,

a holiday based in part on and old Aztec festival in honor of the goddess, Mitecacihuatl, Queen of the Underworld. Everywhere people have constructed “ofrendas” to honor the dead. Each ofrenda is designed for the person it honors. People leave favorite foods, pictures, flowers, tobacco or anything special that the deceased particularly liked. In this district the founding fathers of Querétaro have been honored with ofrendas set up at plazas throughout the town.

Many times there are skulls made of sugar. Sometimes these skulls are stacked together in a wall of heads reminiscent of some of the more gruesome Aztec traditions.

We see many paper butterflies hung around the ofrendas. It is said that on November 1, children who have died in the previous year are transformed into butterflies, a lovely thought.

Everywhere there are paper hangings with cut out designs. These hangings are supposed to be so light that they can be moved by the breath of the dead. When you hear them rasping it is the sound of the dead breathing.

Of course we are taking in the less seasonal sights of Querétaro as well. Plenty of beautiful old churches here.

With exquisite carved doors.
Theses places are old.And I do mean old. Mexico is a country with one of the longest histories in the America.




Here in Querétaro, for example, the Americas saw the very first clock tower of its kind built.

The streets and houses are lined with beautiful flowers.

There are plazas and statues everywhere  
                                                               including one with dogs (this one’s for you Dougie!)

and a cellist.

I am particularly enchanted with the use of the Laurel of India which appear all over the city, usually are sculpted a la topiary into quadratic blocks on many of the plazas.

The mixing of Aztec and Christian traditions is not limited to the Day of the Dead. We see blends of the two cultures everywhere.

 

Wednesday night we take in a concert by the percussionist, Oscar Salazar. A fine performance using percussive instruments from all over the world. And it was free!

Then we wander the streets where we bump into some street theater, a troop of actors spoofing the history of Querétaro,

Grab some very tasty treats that belie the old song (here you put the coconut in the lime),

 And head back to El Burro Azul. Tomorrow I finish up at Escuela Internacional and then I have the weekend off. We head to Mexico City (DF, is the term they use here, just as we refer to Washington D. C.) on Friday.

October 26, 2014
After a fairly uneventful journey (it is disconcerting to hear the pilot complaining about the condition of the plane’s tires before the flight…) we arrived in Mexico City. My very friendly and competent tour manager, Pablo, met us there at the airport and we put ourselves in his hands. We hied ourselves to the hotel Milan where Karen and Carolyn and I squeezed ourselves into a cozy matchbox of a room. We were anxious to get on our feet after all that sitting so we all set off down the street from the hotel. We didn’t make it far. Two doors down we found the café of our dreams:

a cafebreria, which is to say a café/bookstore. With plenty of vegetarian options. What luck! (probably the result of my many years of fasting, prayer and meditation). Ate, walked some more and crashed secure in the knowledge that we had plenty of time to sleep, what with the time change and all. Today was the day of interminable travel. A bus trip to Guadalajara that should only have taken 6 hours took 9. Ay de mi, we were ready to get off that bus. Quick taxi ride to a rather forbidding looking door. But “open sesame” and hey! Some pretty nice digs.

Wish we were staying here longer! Carolyn, Karen and I walked down the street to the Sunday night market on the plaza next to a lovely gothic church. Services were in full swing and so was the market. Got dinner, bought breakfast and returned to our apartment for a good night’s sleep and blessedly good internet!

October 27, 2014

First day of work: We got an early start using the same cabby we used to get here last night. He, as it turned out, had kept working after dropping us off. The school, actually a German immersion school with classes in English, was in a “private area,” discernible by the heavily armed guard that was stopping all incoming traffic. This was no gated community with a modest wall around it. This particular “private area” is three school district large, a suburb basically. Three shows on a campus that resembled a small private college. The third show was a tough one. Older kids, not much English. A bad combination that I did not read correctly.

Afterwards Pablo and I met up with Carolyn and Karen who had been discovering Guadalajara’s many wonderful tourist sites that are closed on Mondays. We visited a government office with impressive ceiling art by the famous artist Jose Orozco,

had a terrific lunch and made our way home, stopping to admire some street musicians and dancers doing “Dansa del Viejos,” getting a terrific percussive sound, like clogging out of shoes that looked like flip-flops split in half.

Tonight we visit plaza del Mariachis, Guadalajara being the birthplace of mariachi music!

October 28, 2014

 Well, we had a great evening’s walk, anyway. Spent a little time in a truly labyrinthine market place at the cusp of closing time. Aisle after wandering aisle of stalls, and kiosks selling shoes, belts, toys, food, videos, books and knickknacks. Circuitously, we made our way to La Plaza del Mariachi. Still a bit early, only 7:00 pm. There was an empty stage and rows and rows of empty tables along an outdoor plaza, lined on either side by shops. The deal was you paid 100 pesos (roughly $7.50) and they would play a song. When there’s a crowd you get to hear stuff paid for by others as well the ones you pay for.  (Or you could just mooch.) But, since we were the only action in the square, there wasn’t going to be any music unless we coughed up the dinero. And there seemed to be a little vagueness about where exactly the musicians were at this early hour. We opted to walk around a little and see if the crowd would get any bigger. We did see the musicians eventually, at the end of the plaza, in their flashy mariachi uniforms, shooting the breeze at a table near a food concession. They didn’t look to be in any danger of performing soon, so we gave up and went home.

Today, our last in Guadalajara (man, this trip is going fast!), Pablo said we were heading for Ines Hidalgo School. Got into the taxi with Miguel, who has been shepherding us in the mornings. (I should note here, that taking a cab in Mexico is not for the faint of heart. The sudden accelerations and stops, the noisy gear shifts and squeaky brakes… traffic signals become mere suggestions – bad advice given to you by a clueless friend…  animated conversations, complete with passionate gestures using both hands whilst the steering wheel is left to intuit the drivers momentarily forgotten intentions… all of these combine to nourish a sense of, shall we say, aliveness in the face of sudden death.) I asked Miguel if he knew who Inez Hidalgo was and he said she was a famous teacher. Turns out the name of the school is Ingles Hidalgo School. (No relation to Ines Hidalgo, whoever she is.)

Our search for the school was becoming desperate enough to ask directions so we pulled over to inquire from an innocent bystander. Did they know Ingles Hidalgo School? No. How about Hector Berlioz St. wherein the school was ensconced? Ah, quoth our informant. We were in the wrong section of town. This was the visual artists section. Composers could be found a few blocks over. There are also barrios where streets are named after architects and bullfighters. As we were wandering around town trying to find the school I noticed a billboard ad for a steakhouse, featuring a cow and the copy: “Ya respira”.* I guess they like their meat rare.

Pablo and I had a great time at the school and afterwards came back to pick up Karen and Carolyn for our next bus ride to Querétera, where we’ll stay for the next three nights. I’m on the bus now, passing fields of Agave (tequila!), Amaranth, corn, and tomatoes. The water for all of the houses around here comes from a cistern which you can see dotting the roofs everywhere. Another reminder how lucky we are to live in an area with such abundant water.

* "It's still breathing"

Later

What a charming, if somewhat quirky motel! Situated in the historic district of downtown Querétaro, El Burro Azul

is the perfect place for us, with charming rooms opening out into a courtyard filled with fountains and plenty of seating to hang in. And here’s a special hats off to the well decorated sinks. The ones we’ve had so far have been lovely.

It was a long bus ride so we were anxious to get out and walk around a bit. Even though it was late, all of Mexico is gearing up for Dia de Muertos, a major holiday down here that’s kind of a combination between Memorial Day, Halloween and Christmas. There are decorations all over the place and our first glimpse of them is in the dark. We’ll see more tomorrow.